Emergency response systems, both public and private, continuously strive to improve their system response times to emergencies in an effort to provide reliable, quick and accurate emergency assistance to the general public and customers. One such improvement effort is the emergency call (“eCall”) service under development.
eCall refers to an interoperable in-vehicle emergency call service, which is envisioned to be introduced and operated across Europe. Various standardization bodies, the automotive industry, mobile telecommunication industry, public emergency authorities and others have come together to develop the technology that will bring eCall to the market. It is further envisioned that eCall will be operated in other countries.
The introduction and use of in-vehicle eCall for deployment of emergency assistance is expected to save many lives and reduce social burden by improving the notification of road accidents and speeding up emergency service response. In the event of a collision, accident or emergency condition, the intended solution can automatically or manually establish an emergency voice call via the cellular network to the local emergency agencies, i.e., a Public-Safety Answering Point (PSAP). Aside from enabling two-way speech communication between the motorist and a PSAP operator, eCall also allows transfer of a data message from the In-Vehicle System (IVS) over the cellular network to the PSAP which is denoted as eCall Minimum Set of Data (MSD). The MSD includes vehicle location information, time stamp, number of passengers, Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), and other relevant information.
Dedicated eCall devices, such as those associated with a vehicle and designed for the sole purpose to make emergency calls in the event of an accident, are generally referred to as devices that operate in “eCall only mode.” That is, eCall only mode requires at least that the device does not perform mobility management procedures, including registration on a Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), except when the device is attempting to initiate and during an emergency call, or when the device is attempting to initiate a test or reconfiguration connection. One proposal is to require storing the information for establishing the eCall only mode in the operator provided Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM), Subscriber Identity Module (SIM), or the like. To realize this proposal might require each entity or operator issuing such modules to preload eCall only mode information in the modules before the modules are incorporated in dedicated eCall devices.
Provisioning of eCall capable devices using information stored on a USIM, SIM, or the like, is a rigid solution. That is, based on the foregoing proposal, enabling a device to operate in eCall only mode requires the device to incorporate a USIM, SIM, or the like, that has been provisioned to include information indicating that the device is an eCall only mode device. Switching a device from eCall only mode to “normal” wireless mode may require removing the USIM, SIM, or the like, and replacing the USIM, SIM, or the like, with a USIM, SIM, or the like, that enables the device to interface with a cellular network in normal wireless mode.